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The Distraction: A Defector Podcast

The Largest Man On The Beach with Ed Zitron

The Distraction: A Defector Podcast

Defector Media

Sports, Society & Culture

4.42.5K Ratings

🗓️ 9 April 2026

⏱️ 64 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Ed Zitron is back on the show, because it’s been too long since he last came on to yell at us about AI. And there’s a lot to yell about! To kick it off, we get the latest on the Big AI Companies, and the seriously unethical house of cards they’ve built for all of us. Other than the ones Anthropic is providing to the Dept. of Defense, who are the actual targets for these products? Why are all of these companies dumping their vast fortunes into a product that devalues the human experience not just for their users but also everyone else, when they could be pouring that money into the kind of cool gadgets we used to have? How can all of us idiots even claim that this is Artificial Intelligence, when we don’t even know what intelligence is?

Do you want to hear your question answered on the pod? Well, give us a call at 909-726-3720. That is 909-PANERA-0!


Stuff We Talked About

  • Clammy Sam Altman
  • Vibe-code speedballs
  • Teaching for the test
  • The JD Vance of OpenAI
  • Tokenmaxxing


Credits

- Hosts: Drew Magary & David Roth

- Producer: Brandon Grugle

- Editor: Mischa Stanton

- Production Services & Ads: Multitude Podcasts

- Subscribe to Defector!


About The Show

The Distraction is Defector's flagship podcast about sports (and movies, and art, and sandwiches, and certain coastal states) from longtime writers Drew Magary and David Roth. Every week, Drew and Roth tackle subjects, both serious and impossibly stupid, with a parade of guests from around the world of sports and media joining in the fun! Roth and Drew also field Funbag questions from Defector readers, answer listener voicemails, and get upset about the number of people who use speakerphone while in a public bathroom stall. This is a show where everything matters, because everyone could use a Distraction. Head to defector.com for more info.

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0

We're back. We're back. It's the distraction. I'm Drew. That's raw. That you doing rough. I'm good, man. Welcome back to the podcast. Yeah, I'm back, baby. And where'd you, you were doing college stuff? This was not a pure beach mode, Drew vacation. No, no, no. It's the, uh, I didn't get the actual spring brick. I got the, you have to do the college tour with your,

0:21.4

with your nervous teenager thing. I'll, I'll write about it, maybe tomorrow or something like that.

0:26.5

I had to write about horny-ass Mike Vrable today, so I didn't have time to write about more

0:31.2

personal issues. That's okay. Yeah, we're doing an emergency Mike Reble, Diana Rusini pod right now,

0:36.8

which is why we brought on Ed Zittron, who knows more about Diana Rusini and Mike Raub's relationship. Yeah, I've been following them. Or as much as anyone as any of us. I've been following them, which is really easy because he's a very big fella, so he's quite easy for me to hide behind. Actually, it was... That was the funny thing about the excuse those two throughout. It was basically,

0:54.9

it was the basic instinct defense, which was, well, we'd have to be pretty stupid to have an affair

1:01.6

and be so public about it. We're not going to do that. I actually think that that's the best,

1:06.4

like, like either that or n-uh-uh is always a good strategy.

1:11.7

There's not a more nuanced response to being like, there's a photograph of you in a bathing

1:16.0

seat with your fingers interlaced with this person.

1:17.9

Like, nah, uh, is in the top three of ways to handle that.

1:21.8

She got sand in her eye and needed guidance away from the beach so she could wash them.

1:28.1

She naturally sought out the largest man on the beach.

1:31.2

She mistook it for an industrial fridge.

1:33.7

And, yeah.

1:34.2

I like the variable also, like he did the sort of the sneering at the accusation.

1:38.5

Like, it's laughable.

1:40.0

It's like when, like, when Christine No.

1:43.2

I think it was Christy Noem was being testified in front of Congress. and they were like, hey, have you ever fucked Corrin Lewandowski? And she's like, that's just tabloid stuff. Like, yeah, like, no shit, lady, you're a walking tabloid. Like, get the fuck out of here. Like, if you're generating clickbait through your behavior, what does that mean? What am I doing by noticing it? Am I,

2:02.5

like, am I falling into your trap or are you somehow being entrapped by me? Ed, the times we have

2:08.9

had you on in the past, you have leased the audience greatly by yelling at us. And me specifically

2:14.5

about AI. Now, right. I think to everyone's disappointment, I am sufficiently radicalized enough

...

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